[Illustration: FLORENCE. _Showing Giotto's Campanile, and the "Duomo."_]
From my window _au troisième_, in the Piazza del Duomo, the look-out this gray April afternoon cannot be called altogether gay. The sellers of flowers and oranges have withdrawn well into the shelter of their little awnings, through which the rain slowly trickles upon the bright mass of fruit; in the great square, the restless population of Florence move aimlessly to and fro with cloaks muffling their faces; there are five close cabs stationed just beneath my window, the drivers of which sit on their respective boxes, beneath the shelter of four large green umbrellas and one blue one; behind them the Baptistery lifts its conical roof by the side of the scaffolding which marks the restoration of the cathedral, and beyond and above everything the Campanile[74] in the square of the Signoria raises its grim castellated head, dark and threatening. One building alone refuses to succumb to the influences of cloud and rain, refuses to lose its beauty or be deprived of its colours; its delicate traceries, and its shades of red, yellow, black, white, and green marble still standing out clearly perceptible through the heavy atmosphere. This is the building with the account of which closes the story of Giotto's life; this is the last and greatest achievement of that great genius who joined to his skill of hand a heart tender enough to enter into every human weakness, and sympathies which extended to the animal and vegetable creation, and drew, with as much simple fidelity and honest enjoyment the dog watching the sheep and the oxen drawing the wain, as the sufferings of the Saviour, or the faith of the disciples.
In shape the Campanile is a square tower without buttress of any kind, rising 292 feet straight from the pavement of the piazza. It has four stories, but does not diminish towards the top, the only difference being that the windows increase in size, and in this way an appearance of superior lightness is gained by the upper stories. The style of the architecture is Gothic in so far as it makes use of the pointed arch, but can hardly be described as such without giving a false impression to those who are accustomed to the Gothic of the north; and who think of that style as one of varied, if somewhat gloomy, masses, of irregular arches, pinnacles, and buttresses; colourless save for the lichen that grows between the grey stones, and owing their beauty more to the unwearied inventiveness of their builders' fancy than to any symmetrical unity of design.